3:12pm | Elected officials, labor leaders, business members and community supporters from cities across the Southland gathered in Long Beach on Thursday to voice support for overturning recent legislation they claim will devastate local job-creating redevelopment projects.
The event was staged just days after it was announced that a lawsuit has been filed by the League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association seeking to overturn a pair of bills approved in June as part of the state budget package.
One of the new laws effectively dissolves redevelopment agencies statewide as of Oct. 1, while the other requires them to pay the state a combined total of $1.7 billion the first year and a combined $400 million each subsequent year to continue operating.
Officials at Thursday’s event described the new laws as the state’s version of “ransom.”
Led by Long Beach Vice-Mayor Suja Lowenthal, the group went on the offensive as they rallied for the laws to be repealed.
“This is an attempt to take our destiny out of our hands,” Lowenthal said, adding that “thousands” of job-creating “projects are on the chopping block.”
She contends, along with more than a dozen other leaders from nearby cities who were in attendance Thursday, that the pair of bills approved last month are unconstitutional.
“It’s plain and simple,” she said.
Long Beach-area representatives in Sacramento received quite a tongue lashing during the event, when state Sen. Alan Lowenthal and Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal were heavily criticized for their support of the bills.
Vice-Mayor Lowenthal spoke of being “devastated” by the votes of her former in-laws, while Long Beach Redevelopment Agency board member John Thomas noted “how out of touch” the city’s state representatives become once they arrive in Sacramento and deemed their votes as “simply outrageous.”
Held on the steps of Long Beach Police Department headquarters, the press conference was set against the backdrop of the site of the city’s up-and-coming new state-of-the-art courthouse. The local RDA played a significant role in bringing that project together and ensuring an equitable agreement for the city and the state’s judicial branch.
More to come …